Biostatistician Geert Molenberghs (Hasselt University) cautiously sees encouraging signs in the daily corona figures. “Although it could also be that we have gradually reached the limits, so that we can no longer follow the rise.” Virologist Steven Van Gucht also wants to remain cautious, but he does speak of “an encouraging signal”.
To be clear, the daily corona numbers continue to rise even today. In the most recent counting period, an average of 1,551 new infections were detected every day, an increase of 17 percent from the previous week. But in recent days and weeks, we’ve seen much bigger increases, of 60 percent or even more.
“We clearly see a decrease in the speed of the rise,” Geert Molenberghs says in “The morning” on Radio 1. “A large part of the population has become more cautious, and realizes that the numbers have to go down. So hopefully we will evolve. gradually from an increase to a stagnation and then to a decline. We have that cautious hope. ”
Virologist Steven Van Gucht sees the same evolution: “For a week now we have seen that the increase has become less pronounced, so that we may seem to be evolving towards a new plateau phase. That is an encouraging signal. It shows that we can all make a difference . ”